THere won’t be any videos for as while as I need to work on the 2 pieces of Dvorak for our choir’s concert. We have a concert on March 22nd at Holy Trinity, Llandudno, and I am struggling! I don’t know why, but I’m finding it very difficult to get a handle on this music. we’ll be singing Dvorak’s ‘Stabat Mater’ (in Latin), and also his ‘Te Deum’ (in Welsh). We’ve got a couple of extra rehearsals fitted in as it seems I’m not the only one that can’t get a grip.
Now, as many of you know, when you sing, you follow notes on a stave, like this:
In Welsh, this is called Hen Nodiadau (old notes). Yes, you’re saying, why is she telling us what we already know? Well, in Wales, they teach you to sing using Sol-fa; you know, like the song, ‘Do-Re-Mi’ from The Sound of Music. It looks like this:
Most of the first language Welsh speakers in the choir use this. Each line depicts Soprano, Alto, Tenor, Bass. The lines and dots mean something (don’t ask me what, though), and it will tell you what note Doh is so you can work it all out from there. I thought I’d have a go at learning it, but decided that I was already learning Welsh and my brain would explode. Besides, I can read music. BUT, occasionally, we get a piece of music which has both hen nodiadau AND sol-fa. It looks like this:
As you can see, it’s very messy. Particularly when you’ve got 1st & 2nds of each voice. Plus, it’ll have been a photocopy of a photocopy so the clarity of the words leaves a lot to be desired. I need the words to be closer to the notes. Usually I can use a Tippex mouse to white-out the sol-fa, but I think this one calls for strips of paper to be stuck over the top and the words written in by hand. I have bought a Tippex pen, but that isn’t fine enough. I have also now bought some old-fashioned liquid Tippex, so I might give that a try before I start cutting strips of paper.
So, it’ll be a case of note-bashing for the next couple of weeks and no time to make any videos. Hopefully, I’ll be back to it in April. Hwyl am y tro!